Feed stores will be getting their chicks in the next couple of months, and if you’re pondering the addition of a backyard flock this year (we hope you are!), it’s time to start thinking about a coop. There’s still lots of time–this year’s chicks won’t be ready to go outside by themselves until May or June–but it doesn’t hurt to start gathering plans, ideas, and materials. So today: A soup-to-nuts look at our year-old coop.
In our last house, we re-purposed a corner of the separate garage for a coop, but this time we started from scratch. Having lost hens to both raccoons and feral ferrets (!), we incorporated lessons from harsh experience into our coop design. Still, I was thinking “Chicken coop: we’ll hammer four walls together, add a roof, cut a little door, fence it up good, and Voila!” Then my dad called–my dad Jerry, the stone mason, from the “If You’re Gonna Build It, Build It Right” school. He said, “I need a little project. You wouldn’t mind if I helped work on your chicken coop, would you?” I know he secretly feared what we’d build without him. With Jerry’s expertise, we ended up with a coop that is as beautiful as it is functional.
For four hens, we chose to build a 6×3′ raised coop, with an enclosed area beneath, set inside a larger, fully-enclosed aviary. As you can see, the coop is raised on cedar posts set in concrete footing, and framed they way you would build any small shed. It has a sloped roof with an overhang on all four sides. We used a hodgepodge of leftover, gifted, used, and new materials, and spent a few hundred dollars. The wood for the walls is half inch plywood, which happens to have a stamped pattern on it (it is not T-111, which isn’t sturdy enough for wet Seattle weather). At the end of this post there’s a downloadable plan with all the dimensions of our coop.
Our coop design has two doors: a big “human door” in the front for easy access, egg gathering, ventilation, and cleaning, and a chicken door on the left side with a ramp.
We leave both of them open during the day, and although the chickens can jump in and out of the human door, they usually prefer to use the chicken door. So funny! Of course all gates and doors latch tightly.
Though the chickens have a larger run, underneath the coop we built a cage Tom calls “Chicken Guantanamo,” where they can be outdoors and still be fully protected if we need to leave them for an extended period. We completely enclosed the area beneath the coop with 1/2 inch metal hardware cloth, buried 10 inches into the ground. We also buried a “floor” of hardware cloth several inches under ground, and sewed it with wire to the buried fence to prevent burrowing by rats/raccoons. Chicken wire is not acceptable, as raccoons can reach right through it and grab a chicken. We made a discovery: the hardware store carries sturdy arched nails called “poultry net staples” for attaching the hardware cloth.
The cage below the coop is accessed from the outside through a small gate which, when open, allows the chickens into the covered 
area for shade, and protection from the rain. But more importantly, we designed it so that if we need to leave overnight, we open a trapdoor on the floor of the coop, and give the chickens full access to the coop and the outdoor cage beneath it while keeping them safe. Most days we don’t use the trap door at all–we just let them out in the yard during the day, and close them up in the coop at night. But the trap door to “Guantanamo” works great when we need it, and we’ve been grateful for this setup many times.
The roof has a ten inch overhang, and even during this year’s wet, blustery Seattle winter, not a drop of water got in the coop. My friend JoJo gave me a bundle of cedar shakes he’d picked up somewhere years ago–they have a tattered label, and are clear, old growth western red cedar, milled locally in 1964! I wouldn’t buy old growth cedar today (even if I could afford it), but was grateful to put these to use. Jerry covered the roof with roofing cloth before nailing down the shakes.
Around the coop is a fully-enclosed chicken yard. For this we used “hog wire,” which is both stronger, and looks nicer than chicken wire. The raccoons in our neighborhood are bold, and wander about in broad daylight–it was absolutely necessary to have the overhead protection. Some urban chicken farmers just create a little closed-in pen, covered at waist-height, but we love to hang out with the chickens, and wanted to be comfortable standing in their yard. We like to let the girls range freely in our backyard when supervised, but most of the time we keep them in their run, safe from neighborhood predators, dogs, and away from the garden.
Some chicken keepers leave the water and food out during the day. I like to keep it in the coop, so I don’t have to move it inside at night. You can make your own feeder/waterers, but these metal ones from the feed store are hard to beat. Hanging the food keeps it free from litter, and discourages the chickens from sitting on top of it (and pooping there…). But the water sloshes from a chain, so I just put it up on some bricks to keep it out of the coop litter (currently we’re using coffee chaff).
One rookie coop building error is the construction of a nest box for every single chicken. We promise you– as we discovered ourselves with out first coop–that no matter how many nest boxes you have, the chickens will all lay their eggs in one nest! Why??? We don’t know, but it’s true…One nest box suffices for four hens. The wooden crates that you can find in dumpsters outside of vegetable stands make perfect nest boxes. I nailed a board across the bottom to keep the straw in. There are also natural branches inside the coop for nocturnal roosting.
The very best part of our coop? Our daughter Claire’s old wooden crate, in the aviary. She sits there with the chickens for an hour at a time, petting them when they jump in her lap. Sometimes she brings a book. She says she feels just like Fern in Charlotte’s Web. We leave an old raincoat by the backdoor, and her boots, and she cuddles the chickens in all weather.
Here’s a simple plan for our coop (PDF), ready for your own modifications (***Please note: the dimensions of the floor are 3 x 6′, not 4 x 6′ as in my sketch***). The photos from this post, and more images of our coop and foul endeavors, are in Tom’s Flickr account (at a higher resolution and under a Creative Commons license – feel free to re-use them).
Obviously we love our coop and it brought us pleasure to build it, though it did take the better part of five days, and the support of my experienced and indefatigable dad (Thanks, Jerry!). But don’t feel daunted! The web is full of great examples of simple coops made inexpensively from found materials (as well as coops much fancier than ours!). Or find inspiration, as we did, in the terrific book, Chicken Coops: 45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock
Here are previous chicken-related posts on The Tangled Nest, including this one on caring for chicks in a homemade biddy box. There are tons of resources for urban chicken farmers on the web, including this great page by Seattle Tilth.
December, 2012: This coop plan is now available as an amazing infographic by Timothy Sanders.
You may also like the post The Tangled Nest Urban Chicken Roundup, an overview of my best chicken-related posts.
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I was wondering how the base of the coop is attached to the 4×4 uprights?
Carlyn, those posts go all the way up, forming part of the interior coop frame. So the walls etc. are nailed to the posts.
Actually, from the photos, it looks like the 4×4 posts stop at the base of the coop floor and then 2×4 s are used to form the body of the coop up to the roof.
Would you mind asking your dad how he attached the floor to the 4×4 s? Thanks,
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Helpful article!!!! Here you have shared some important information about Urban Chicken Coop Plan & I hope these information will be helpful for all!!!!!!!!!!
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Thanks for showing us your coop, very functional design. I would like to know your source for the large fenced enclosure material. I am finding it to be costly at the big stores but would love to have a larger yet protected area similar to your design.
Regards.
CMB
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Thanks for sharing your ideas on chicken coops, your articles are very educative. keep it on. John ken.
Such a cute coop! And the pic of your daughter with the ‘Fern’ comment was too sweet. I feel the same way when I sit with my girls! Great job :o)
Hi, I just found you blog and love it! I’ve read almost all of your chicken adventures 😉
Thanks for sharing about your coop. I tried to look at the photos linked in the flickr account though and couldn’t get access. Did you have to lock it down. 🙁
Your coop is just perfect!
I’m curious if you can tell me, how is the coffee chaff working as a little compared to wood shavings?
Found your site when looking for a coop! Your design looks easy & cute as well! Hope my
Husband thinks the same! My daughters & I are so excited!!!!
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This is a great site, so sweet, great spirit.
And, as an old carpenter, I appreciate the aesthetics and the craftsmanship.
I’d lose the name Guantanamo though. Your chickens are treated with more respect than Guantanamo detainees. They look a lot happier and the accommodations are better.
I’m really enjoying the theme/design of your site. Do you ever run into any internet browser compatibility problems? A couple of my blog visitors have complained about my site not operating correctly in Explorer but looks great in Safari. Do you have any suggestions to help fix this issue?
Good day! This is kind of off topic but I need some help from an established blog.
Is it difficult to set up your own blog? I’m not very techincal but I can figure things out pretty fast. I’m thinking about creating my own but I’m not sure where to start. Do you have any points or suggestions? With thanks
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Such an interesting coop. Please fix the Flickr access to the additional pictures so we can see more. Thanks for sharing.
It wasn’t until I found this site that I finally completed my chicken coop project.
I was just curious as to what color you painted the coop? I love that color green. Do you remember the name of it by any chance? Love the coop by the way. Way too cute!
Excellent posting! Please, let me love not only the post but also the site. Thanks.
I love how your coop looks! small but accessible to the owner and the chickens.
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Just building the coop by your plans. BTW there are no directions for the sides and how to attach the roof. We are making due though.
how did you download it
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Folks: great website! we are new chicken (chick) owners…really like the coop plan…question: can we use solid cement blocks for footings instead of pouring footings? the thought is that someday…well in the future…we may want to move the coop….pls advise
Also, we have 6 hens….was thinking of making the coop 4×6 instead of 3×6 as you map out to give each one 4 sq feet….seems like you could tweak your plan pretty easy to accommodate (?)
thanks very much
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Hi, I was looking for a design for a chicken coop and found this one. I thought it was nice and easy to build. My husband and I did build this one and modify the plans a little. It’s 6 x 4 with a nested box area. It’s located in a 20 x 10 fence area too. We are getting our chickens this weekend
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Hi,
Thanks for sharing. I’m currently using your plan to build mine and I’m very happy you posted the information.
One question I’m stumped on is how you incorporated the angle of your roof. In your picture, coopframe480 it looks like there is a gap between the roof and the front wall due to the angle. I calculated the angle of the roof to be about 16.2 degrees, but I was wondering how you tackled that so the roof fits flat to the studs of the side walls etc.
Also, how did you fix the studs together in the roof layout? Seems hard to do without brackets. Any info would be great.
Thanks!
Jason
Awesome plans! Thank you so much for sharing. It was the inspiration behind building my own. The one caveat I would add is that the infographic’s measurements for the door are incomplete and the roof framing appears to be off by a few inches. (The width ends up being 68 inches rather than 72 inches.) But otherwise, it was such an amazing resource! http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdawg/9926291536
Ooo! Thank you for this post. I can’t wait to use these plans to build our coop. Yours looks fabulous and so functional!
~Catherine
Thanks for sharing the link to your infographic. I’m very interested in building your urban coop, but the infographic that’s available is very small and it’s difficult to read the numbers. I actually bought a book with your coop on the cover, thinking the plans would be inside, but it was the wrong book – no specific plans with your coop. Drats! If you could help by pointing me to larger file of the plans, my chickens and my backyard would be grateful!
Thanks!
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4 months in 10 minutes
Flew the Coop –my ‘documentary’ about building my chicken coop with your design (and acknowledged twice in the video!) Its now a happy home for 5 chickens. Thanks!